Sell Your Commercial Property Fast In Los Angeles, CA

Who rents in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a renter city by a wide margin. The 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts 3,857,263 residents in 1,439,097 occupied homes, and 920,674 of those homes are rented, a 64.0% share. Median household income is $81,939.

The same pattern holds in Long Beach, the separate city named on our Los Angeles page. ACS 2020–2024 figures for Long Beach show 58.8% of its 170,927 occupied homes are rented, with a median household income of $87,430. The San Fernando Valley, South Bay and San Gabriel Valley are not single Census places, so the data on this page uses the City of Los Angeles unless a line is labelled otherwise.

Trade work is one reason demand stays deep across income levels. The Port of Los Angeles handled 10.2 million TEUs in calendar 2025 and has been the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere for 26 straight years. The port says it supports 126,000 jobs in the city, about one in 16, and the combined San Pedro Bay complex with Long Beach supports 176,000 jobs across the two cities.

Rents and affordability

Median gross rent, which includes utilities, was $1,933 a month in the city over 2020–2024. Long Beach came in slightly lower at $1,871. Those medians blend decades-old rent-stabilized leases with recent market-rate leases, so asking rents on vacant units can run higher.

The cost burden is heavy. In the city, 56.5% of renter households spend 30% or more of income on rent, and 31.1% spend at least half, per ACS table B25070. In Long Beach the 30%-plus share is 53.1%. With that many tenants stretched, collections and turnover are a bigger part of underwriting here than in markets where rent sits further below income.

HUD's fair market rents are the benchmark used to set payment standards for Housing Choice Voucher tenancies. For FY2026, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area figures are:

The figures come from HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rent schedule and cover Los Angeles County. For a building with in-place rents well under these levels, voucher tenancies can be a meaningful part of the income story when units turn.

The apartment stock

The city has 1,554,332 housing units, and 751,415 of them, or 48.3%, are in buildings with five or more units, according to ACS table B25024. The split by building size shows how much of the market is small and mid-size property: 135,415 units sit in 5–9 unit buildings, 150,608 in 10–19 unit buildings, 207,245 in 20–49 unit buildings and 258,147 in buildings of 50 or more. The 5–49 unit range alone holds about 493,000 homes, and much of it is held by long-term private owners.

The stock is old. The median year built is 1965, 69.9% of units predate 1980, and 43.8% predate 1960, per table B25034. Only 7.8% were built in 2010 or later. Long Beach is older still, with a 1959 median year built and 40.1% of its homes in 5+ unit buildings. That age profile is what puts so many buildings under the city's rent stabilization rules, and it also means seismic, plumbing and electrical work comes up in nearly every buyer's due diligence.

Rent stabilization and the city's 2026 changes

The Rent Stabilization Ordinance applies to rental units first built on or before October 1, 1978, plus certain replacement units. For RSO units, the LAHD bulletin sets the allowable increase at 3% for July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. The increase is tied to the CPI average for the 12 months ending September 30, sits within a 1% to 4% range, and can be taken once every 12 months; it is not cumulative. LAHD also notes that since February 2, 2026, owners can no longer add a separate percentage for utilities.

Newer buildings fall outside the RSO. The city's Just Cause Ordinance, in effect since January 27, 2023, covers most units not regulated by the RSO, requiring a legal reason to end a tenancy after six months or the end of the initial lease. LAHD's notice for the program described an annual registration bill of $31.05 per rental unit. The JCO does not limit rent increases itself, but the state Tenant Protection Act caps increases on many non-RSO units at 5% plus regional CPI, or 10%, whichever is lower, and exempts units with a certificate of occupancy from the previous 15 years. The statute runs until January 1, 2030.

The Costa-Hawkins Act keeps local rent control off units with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995, so a newer building's rents are governed by state law only. For a fuller rundown of what changed this year, see our post on Los Angeles rent rules for 2026.

Property and transfer taxes in Los Angeles County

Under Proposition 13, the base property tax rate is 1% of assessed value plus local voter-approved bond levies, and assessed value can rise no more than 2% a year while a property stays with the same owner, per the Board of Equalization's Publication 29. A sale resets the assessment to market value. The BOE's Assessors' Handbook 401 explains that acquiring more than 50% of an entity that owns real property also counts as a change in ownership, which matters for LLC and partnership sellers. An owner who bought decades ago may be paying tax on a fraction of today's value, and the buyer's underwriting will show a much higher tax line.

Transfer costs are the other city-specific issue. State law lets counties charge $0.55 per $500 of value on recorded transfers, and cities may add their own. In the City of Los Angeles, Measure ULA layers on a 4% tax for sales above a lower threshold and 5.5% above an upper threshold, with both thresholds indexed each July, as summarized by the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. Because ULA applies to the full price, a sale just over a threshold can cost the seller more than a slightly lower price would.

Deposits and notices

Since July 1, 2024, Civil Code 1950.5 limits most security deposits to one month's rent, with a narrow exception for small individual landlords. Deposits must be returned with an itemized statement within 21 days of move-out, and photo documentation is now required at move-out and, for tenancies beginning July 1, 2025 or later, at move-in. Buyers will ask for deposit ledgers and photo files during escrow, because the obligation transfers with the building.

What this means if you own a building here

Seven in ten of the city's homes predate 1980, so many sellers are marketing RSO units with in-place rents that may lag the market, rising under a 1% to 4% annual range. Buyers value those buildings on current net operating income, the reassessed Prop 13 tax bill and expected capital work, and they weigh how many units might turn over. A clean RSO and JCO registration history, current rent rolls, and records of any seismic retrofit work all shorten due diligence.

Transfer tax is part of net proceeds planning. Before setting a price, check where the number lands relative to the current ULA thresholds and model the after-tax result with our capital gains tax calculator. Skyline Capital Investments buys 5+ unit buildings across Los Angeles, Long Beach, the South Bay, the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley, including rent-stabilized and older properties. Our seller page explains how we underwrite and close.